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If you're interested in seeing and hearing about my second procedure with Dr. Rahal (FUE this time instead of FUT like the first time), please check out my blog here: Hair Restoration Websites

If you're interested in hearing about and seeing results from my 2nd procedure with Dr. Rahal (FUE this time instead of FUT like the first time), please visit my blog here: Hair Restoration Websites

Thanks, Tsakalos. I'll keep you posted through the journal and really appreciate the good wishes.

Hey Phil - it's nice to hear from you. I appreciate the comments, as well as you sharing a bit about your own growth timeline. I also like the undulations Dr. Rahal added to the hairline. They're in sync with the way my hair looked before it started receding and they definitely help with the naturalness of the appearance of the transplant. I wish you good growth and good luck as your hair continues to grow in and hopefully we'll both be ecstatic when everything is all done growing. Cheers!

Hey Megatron...great to hear from you. The hairline in the 6 month photo isn't completely new but much of it is. The hairline left and right have both been enhanced with transplanted hair...much more so on the right (those hairs are still a bit thin and wispy as you can see). The widow's peak has also been enhanced a bit...not so much in terms of lowering but in terms of filling in. All told, Dr. Rahal lowered the hairline a bit in each temple corner and probably a full 1/2 inch on the right side where the most loss and recession had occurred. The hair directly behind the hairline, as well as the strong, fully matured hair a bit right of center was all there before and looks even healthier than before the surgery...probably due to the blending with the new hair. I'm really glad it looks good to you and thanks so much for the interest and comments.

Thanks so much, Bill and Future_HT_Doc. I really appreciate you taking the time to look and comment.

That's very much appreciated and thanks for taking the time to write. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you as well. Forgive the pun...couldn't resist.

Wanted to share my most recent blog update. I'm now almost 6 1/2 months post-surgery with Dr. Rahal. Here's the link to my journal... http://hairtransplantnetwork.com/blog/home-page.asp?WebID=1476

Cheers, Megatron. Your comments are both totally correct and very much appreciated. I've been using Propecia and Rogaine for about 5 years now. So used to them it's like brushing my teeth in the morning. Hopefully they can help me continue to maintain my existing hair .

That's what I'm hoping, my friend! Thanks for the kind words.

Hello all, I just update my weblog with photos of my 3-month results, along with some reflection on the ride so far. Hope you'll check it out and enjoy.

Hey Bill and Raph84, Thanks for taking the time to look and post. The comments are appreciated.

Thanks for taking a look and posting some feedback, hair_me_out. Happy Holidays to you!

Sorry everyone...meant to post pre-op photos here but they were too large and I couldn't resize them. Go to my weblog here to see the pre-op photos and various updates between 2 days post-op and one-month post-op. All told, I received 2350 grafts in the frontal zone. http://hairtransplantnetwork.c...-page.asp?WebID=1476

I'm officially one month post-op...finally!...and I'm attaching a photo album in hopes of hearing some feedback from some of the community out there. The album starts with a couple of pre-op photos and then the one-month post-op photos. You'll notice there are photos that show some thinning in my crown and top and then photos that don't. All of the one month post-op photos were taken post-shower and post-Rogaine application and with nothing else. The last photos that show a rather full crown show the result with a few sprinkles of a regular size bottle of toppik. Obviously, I'm going to have to continue to monitor the top and crown. I've been on Propecia for 5 years and Rogaine for about 4 and will continue to stay on them. As for the front, looks like many, if not most, grafts have fallen or are falling out. It's actually hard to differentiate which of the hairs that are left in the frontal zone are native and which are transplanted but I'm fairly sure at least some transplanted hairs are still there are growing. One-month post op photos show hair at one-week post shave-down to a #3. Some hairs are a bit longer as I didn't want to go over the grafts with a clipper so I used a scissors and left them a bit longer. Comments welcome...

JohnMalloy, You reference how you've had two and they were obviously quite a bad experience. I'm terribly sorry to hear that, but if you wouldn't mind, would be interested to know which doctors you went to and what happened as a result of your surgeries to make you feel like you made such a big mistake. Also, if you wouldn't mind sharing how old you are and what made you go back for a second if the first one was so bad, that would be genuinely appreciated. I personally am 10 days out of my first transplant, am 33 years old and am quite interested in your story.

Thanks for the nice words and for taking the time to offer some feedback, Raphael84! I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results start to spring to life in a few months. Yeah...with the concealers, I got a lot of mileage out of those and probably could have gotten quite a bit more for another few years but I hated washing them out at the end of the day and seeing what I was left with. Plus, I used them for the better part of 5 years and, during that time, the right side of my hairline really eroded, making it hard to have any kind of non-concealed hairstyle that didn't blow my cover. Basically, no matter what I was doing, I had to style my hair to leave the house if I didn't want to give myself away. At the beginning when I first started using them, it wasn't like that and I didn't mind as much. Propecia and Rogaine did wonders for me, but the hairline erosion seemed too powerful for the meds. Anyway, I'm 33 right now. Thanks for the kind words and for dropping me a line and stay in touch.

Thanks, Tundra. I really appreciate the nice comment and will do!

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Bill. I'll have to check again to make sure my photos are in jpg format. They were all over 1MB in size and the program told me they had to be 500KB or smaller. I'll try again maybe later today. Regardless, thanks for taking a look at my blog and for the comments regarding my results. This website has been (and remains) an invaluable resource to me and hopefully my blog and my posts can be helpful to somebody else.

I'm almost 4 days out from my procedure and find myself wanting to scratch the itchiness I feel from time to time in the recipient area, but of course, I'm aware of how bad that would be and do my best not to touch the recipient area at all. Instead, I've tried scratching below the hairline and behind the transplanted area to see if I might get some "placebo" relief (for lack of a better way of putting it) but I make accidental but very brief contact with recipient hairs once or twice a day. It's not a heavy-handed thing and my fingers basically brush across the transplanted hairs. I know I MUST stop scratching and I'm trying. Still...did anyone else have this issue at any point post-surgery? I haven't pulled anything out or caused any bleeding so I know there's no graft loss, but I'm curious what (if any) long-term growth damage could happen from accidental but light contact with the transplanted grafts. Anyone with any knowledge on this?

Thank you, guys. Sorry the photos aren't working on this page. Turns out they were a bit too big for the server and I don't have a good re-sizing program. Glad you checked out the blog photos and have good feedback. I appreciate the good wishes and the time you spent checking them out.

Sure thing. Blog is here... http://www.hairtransplantnetwo...-page.asp?WebID=1476

I drove up from NY to Ottawa 2 days ago to have my first ever hair transplant with Dr. Rahal. I invite you to read my blog to hear more about my own personal experience from first noticing my hairloss through 2 days ago when I finally decided to have the surgery. I won't get too into that here. What I will mention is that I was quite nervous...IMMENSELY nervous to be sure...despite the fact that I researched this science and technology, meeting with numerous incredibly well-credentialed surgeons, for the better part of 5 years. I can say, without reservation, that I found every one of the HTN-recommended surgeons with whom I communicated to be quality human beings of the highest order and surgeons with a deep respect for their own personal skill and artistry. In the end, I decided that Dr. Rahal was my guy and I couldn't be happier having made that decision. It's not the closest trip in the world to go from NYC to Ottawa but I agree with other members of this forum and community that distance shouldn't be an issue. What needs to be the only issue is who do you feel comfortable with and who do you think is going to give you the best result. Dr. Rahal is a gentleman and a scholar, as well as a very personable man whom I've enjoyed getting to know and have enjoyed having the opportunity to chat with. His bedside manner is second-to-none. Even my father came up to Ottawa today (2 days post surgery) and came with me to meet him and had nothing but nice things to say about him and his staff. I can tell you that I barely slept for almost 60 hours pre-surgery from the nerves and anxiety of what was to come. I was nervous about the unknown and about committing myself to a whole new life of "transplant patient" being that I really didn't know what to expect other than what I'd read from other blogs and from other websites. My fears proved to be unfounded and, assuming you feel you've done your research and you're ready to take the plunge, I would tell other people that you should go ahead and have a procedure and not worry about it too much. I don't know if and/or when I'll ever need a 2nd surgery, but if I do, Dr. Rahal is my guy and I won't have anywhere near the anxiety the 2nd time around. Still, like anyone else, I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be it for a long time. We'll have to see how the healing and growth proceed. Again, I invite you to check out my blog and leave comments and/or questions and I'll be happy to respond.